Does Shareholder Structure Internationalization Improve M&As Performance in China?
Based on samples of 9682 M&A events of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2004 to 2019 and hand-collected data of foreign owner-ship that can be traced back to source countries(regions),this paper investigates the impact of shareholder structure internationalization on the M&A per-formance.The study finds that shareholder structure internationalization helps to enhance the M&A value creation ability of Chinese enterprises.This con-clusion remains valid after controlling for potential endogeneity bias through instrumental variable two-step least squares method and after a series of ro-bustness tests.The mechanism analysis suggests that foreign institutional shareholders can enhance M&A performance through three potential channels:curbing the"tunneling"activities of insiders during the M&A process,promoting the spillover of M&A knowledge from developed markets,and providing an implicit reputation guarantee for the acquiring companies.Further research finds that both FDI and FPI foreign institutional shareholders can significant-ly enhance corporate M&A performance.